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Informal Helping Networks And Social Service Changes: A Community Perspective, Charles Hoch, George Hemmens, Rojean Madsen, Wim Wiewel

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Interviews with 112 household respondents and 58 social service agency directors in three ethnically and racially distinct Chicago neighborhoods provided a comprehensive assessment of -- household helping relationships in a community context. Reliance on informal helping greatly exceeded use of formal agencies at the household level. Households were twice as likely to give help as receive it in a complex variety of ways, while agencies struggled to add new functional programs in a time of retrenchment. What households gave and got did not overlap with agency programs in any coherent way. Further, household respondents and agency directors disagreed in their …